STATEWIDE Charlotte Region

MassMutual's Babson finds a perch downtown

MassMutual Financial Group is raising its Queen City profile with a 25-story office tower overlooking Charlotte’s downtown ballpark. Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, MassMutual’s real-estate investment arm, will begin construction on 300 South Tryon this fall. Babson Capital Management, a subsidiary of Springfield, Mass.-based MassMutual, will occupy 200,000 of its 633,000 square feet. Babson opened a Charlotte office in 2002, when it acquired Wachovia’s institutional debt-management business, which then had $3.7 billion in assets. Babson now manages nearly $200 billion and employs 1,008 worldwide. Once construction is finished in spring 2017, Babson will move its 140 Charlotte employees from the 48-story Duke Energy Center, which opened in 2010 and was the most recent office tower built in the center city. Babson may move its headquarters there from Massachusetts, says CEO Tom Finke, who lives in Charlotte. Spectrum Properties of Charlotte will co-develop the skyscraper, designed by Charleston, S.C.-based architectural firm LS3P Associates.

The recession killed a 2007 plan for a 32-story tower. Now a 25-story building is planned there.

Briefs

CHARLOTTE — H. Lundbeck will acquire drug developer Chelsea Therapeutics in a deal worth up to $658 million. Chelsea, which employs 18 here, received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in February for its drug for dizziness and fainting connected to neurological conditions. Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck employs 6,000 people in 57 countries. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.

CHARLOTTE — Menlo Park, Calif.-based private-equity firm GI Partners agreed to acquire Peak 10 from Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a New York-based private-equity firm, for an undisclosed amount. Peak 10 operates 24 data centers in seven states, including six in North Carolina. The deal was expected to close in the second quarter.

CHARLOTTE — The power-generation subsidiary of Babcock & Wilcox, which provides engineering, manufacturing and construction services to energy companies, agreed to buy De Pere, Wis.-based MEGTEC for $155 million. MEGTEC makes air-pollution-control systems and employs 600 people in 10 countries. Babcock & Wilcox has 11,000 workers worldwide, including 200 here. The deal was expected to close by June 30.

CHARLOTTE — NuScale Power, which develops power systems for nuclear reactors, will open an operations and engineering center that will employ 70 people. It will share existing office space with Irving, Texas-based Fluor Corp., which owns a majority stake in NuScale. In December 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded up to $225 million over five years to Portland, Ore.-based NuScale to develop nuclear small modular reactor technology.